Ready at Dawn

For The Order: 1886, perhaps less is more. The action title from Ready at Dawn was announced in 2013, and since then, we’ve had snippets of information about the game here and there. The most I know is this: It takes place in an alternate Victorian era universe, where men still get around by carriage, wear top hots and sport bushy mustaches. They’re battling all sorts of supernatural creatures with the most obvious being werewolves. Other than that it’s hard to pinpoint what the game exactly is.

I got a clearer sense recently when I had a chance to play a short demo and talk with the game’s director Dana Jan. I’ve liked the team’s work since God of War: Chains of Olympus. The studio has a way of telling personal stories that are set amid epic backdrops. They even managed to make Kratos more human instead of the unrelenting rage monster that he evolved into. It’s a talent that few teams have: Ready at Dawn has a deft way of merging gameplay with storytelling and give players other emotions in genres that are usually focused power fantasies.Continue Reading →

When Sony introduced The Order: 1886 last year, it looked good but didn’t impress me. It wasn’t until E3 2014 that a clearer picture of the game emerged. It was atmospheric and creepy, showing some of the plot and backstory. In the extended demo I saw, the Ready at Dawn team offered more insight into the title’s development.

After God of War III, I assumed that the series would end. There would be no more stories to tell. Players already knew how the saga ended, and any additional plotlines would be anticlimactic.

Besides, how else can anyone top Kratos killing both Zeus and Gaia? What else was there to say when a main character single-handedly puts an end to Mount Olympus? But Kratos has a way of surprising people, and in the right hands, he can still be a compelling character even if one knows his ultimate fate.

Ready at Dawn is an underrated studio. Perhaps the team doesn’t get the recognition it deserves because it mostly works on PlayStation Portable titles. Hand-held games almost never get the publicity that big-screen ones do. Nevertheless, they’ve done amazing work on the portable system. They made one of the best God of Wargames with Chains of Olympus and they’re following it up with a second entry into the franchise Ghost of Sparta.

I had a chance to speak with the game director, Dana Jan, about the just-released title and the franchise in general. What I like about his team’s past efforts with the series is that they humanize Kratos a little bit from the giant rage monster he usually is. Chains of Olympus showed what he gave up to save the world, and Ghost of Sparta reveals another family story from the Spartan.

This one involves his brother, Deimos, who has been mentioned before. He’s almost like a shadow lurking around the God of War canon, but now, we get to see him up close. In addition, we also get to see what Kratos had been up to between the original and God of War II. It’s a time in Kratos’ life that interested the developer.

“It seemed to make a lot of sense to fill in that void between God of War One and Two,” Jan said. “He finished off the Ares, became the god of war. He looks completely different between the first God of War and two. What transpired there? He’s in the crazy armor. Where did he get that? They kind of glossed over that.”